As the R&A was forced to devote a hefty chunk of its annual pre-Open press conference to persuading the captain of what most would imagine to be the host golf club of the benefits of being invited to stage the sport’s greatest championship, the initial impression given to the world was of Carnoustie being subjected to a permanently disfiguring, self-inflicted injury.
Speaking to the BBC, Bill Thompson had suggested that the Open Championship was now too big for the little Angus town which, normally populated by 14,000 residents, had not been built to cope with the 35,000 to 40,000 spectators who attend each day. For all that it reflects one of the great virtues of golf in this part of the world, the post he holds, captain of Carnoustie Golf Club, gives a highly misleading impression of the status of his comments, however.
The everyman nature of golf on the Angus coast can generate the sort of confusion that saw a presenter on another arm of the BBC mistakenly tell listeners on Tuesday evening that he and his colleagues were broadcasting from the 18th fairway of Carnoustie Golf Club when there is no such thing.
The club in question is just one of half a dozen that, along with Angus Council delegates, are represented on the Carnoustie Golf Links Management Committee (CGLMC), which runs the town’s golf facilities. Its members would distance themselves from their fellow local’s comments with alacrity, aware, as they would be of what is essentially the reason for their organisation’s existence, formed as it was in 1980, five years into what was to be a near quarter century campaign to bring back the Open. That is perhaps best commemorated by the tribute paid to the late Jock Calder, former chairman of CGLMC, on the website of the Dalhousie Club – another of those CGLMC clubs – in which it was observed that its former captain: “…will be remembered most for the determination and enormous energy he put into the recovery of Carnoustie golf links from obscurity in the 1980’s.”
Those of us who worked in the local media back in the eighties vividly remember his passion for that task at a time when conspiracy theories were rife concerning the reason the course considered to be the world’s greatest test had been dropped from the Open rota. He would, then, have been proud to be vindicated as he was yesterday by officers of the R&A which, for all that the process still has some way to go, has modernised greatly since their forebears turned their faces away from Carnoustie between the mid-seventies and late nineties.
“If you go back to 1999, bringing the Open here transformed Carnoustie,” observed R&A chief executive Martin Slumbers, noting that the golf course itself, as well as surrounding infrastructure, had benefited from the investment.
“The Open brings huge value to Carnoustie as a golf course and this course is driven by tourists playing here. We are very proud to showcase this golf course and this town on the world stage.”
His message was reinforced by Johnnie Cole-Hamilton, the R&A’s executive director of championships who said: “From my perspective in the 20 Opens I’ve been involved in, this has been one of the most positive experiences I’ve had in building a modern Open Championship.”
There will always be those who resist change and the Carnoustie Golf Club captain was doubtless a spokesman for some townsfolk who feel the time has come to rest on laurels. The rest, however, should be grateful to the likes of the former CGLMC chairman since they are, in golfing terms, all Jock Calder’s bairns and should be very proud of what his campaigning achieved on behalf of his town and its championship golf course.
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